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Posts Tagged ‘hunger’

Hungry: 795 million people, or one in nine—UN Hunger Report

India is home to the highest number of hungry people in the world, at 194 million, surpassing China, says the United Nations annual hunger report.

The number of hungry people in China are 133.8 million in 2014-15, says the report.

Countries with more than 40 percent of the populations undernourished:

Zambia: 7.4 million people or 47.8 % of the population
Central African Republic: 2.3 million or 47.7 %
Namibia: 1 million or 42.3 %
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: 10.5 million or 41.6 %

The number of hungry people globally has declined from about 1 billion 1990 to about 795 million this year, despite a surge in population growth, according to the report.

However, the Moderators were unable to independently verify the figures in the United Nations’ annual hunger report, which is published jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Program.

Drought has destroyed crops and devastated livelihoods across the so-called “Dry Corridor,” a drought-prone area shared by Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, said the world Food program (WFP).

“Some 2.5 million people in Central America need food assistance due to the combined impact of severe drought, the Coffee Rust plague and a spike in food prices. WFP is working with the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to provide food assistance to 1.4 million people, but there are challenges.”

Millions of subsistence farmers and day-to-day laborers in Central America “are in a critical situation due to the combination of three factors,” said WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

“First, they lost their subsistence crops, mostly beans and maize, to the drought. Second, due to the outbreak of the Coffee Rust plague in 2012, coffee production dropped and so did the demand for jobs and the families’ income. And finally, a shortage of beans and maize has caused a rise in food prices in all countries.”

“Some families resort to dangerous survival tactics, such as skipping or reducing the size of meals. Others simply stop sending their children to school to save money. Others send the head of households to Mexico or the United States to find jobs,” he said.

Conditions are expected o deteriorate further early next year because of poor harvests, forecasters said..

“These people grow mostly maize and beans to feed their families, but these crops demand lots of water,” he added.

Meantime, Guatemala has declared a state of emergency after more than ¼ million families lost their crops due to the drought.

WAR, FAMINE AND DISEASE.

South Sudan is weeks away from worst famine in recent African history: UN

Unless comprehensive action is taken to address hunger in South Sudan before the planting season ends in May, the country faces one of the worst famines in African history, UN agencies have said.

“If we miss the planting season, there will be a catastrophic decline in food security,” said Toby Lanzer, the Deputy Special Representative to the Secretary-General for the UN Mission in South Sudan. “What will strike that country, and it will hit about seven million people, will be more grave than anything that continent has seen since the mid-1980s.”

Based on the UN assessment, the crucial planting season in South Sudan will end in less than 5 weeks.

South Sudan: 7 Million at Risk of Hunger and Disease

Video clips and photos taken in the hot spots of South Sudan since conflict erupted there on 15 December 2013. Posted on YT by Toby Lanzer.

Locust plague threatens livelihoods of 60% of Madagascar population

Locust infestations is threatening the livelihoods of 13 million Malagasy, about 60 percent of the population, nine million of whom entirely depend on Agriculture.

The locust could wipe out food crops and livestock grazing lands and destroy the peasant families’ ability to provide for themselves, said the FAO.

“The heart of the locust plague is in the country’s southwestern region – an area prone to drought and cyclones, where more than 80 percent of the people live below the poverty line. In February 2013, Cyclone Haruna flooded rice fields in the region’s coastal areas – rice production is central to Madagascar’s economy – causing significant damage while also creating ideal breeding conditions for locusts. ”

More than 1.5 million hectares, some two-thirds of the country, could be infested by locusts by September 2013, said FAO.

A locust plague can last more than a decade, if left untreated, progressively intensifying each season. Tens of billion of locusts devastate food crops, as well as grazing lands, which are vital for keeping livestock healthy and productive.

Adult Migratory Locusts can multiply quickly, forming highly mobile groups and swarms. Depending on its size, a swarm – made up of millions of locusts – can eat up to 100 000 tonnes of green vegetation per day. A locust plague – which is what Madagascar is now facing – means thousands of swarms. That translates to billions of locusts. —FAO

Image of the Day: Hundreds of billions of plant-devouring insects hit Madagascar island.

The worst locust plague to hit Madagascar in 6 decades

A severe plague of locusts has infested about half of Madagascar, threatening crops and raising concerns about food shortages, according to FAO, a UN agency. FAO image viaBBC.

“Nearly 60% of the island’s more than 22m people could be threatened by a significant worsening of hunger in a country that already had extremely high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition,” said FAO.

“The last one was in the 1950s and it had a duration of 17 years so if nothing is done it can last for five to 10 years, depending on the conditions.” FAO locust control expert told BBC Focus on Africa.

“Currently, about half the country is infested by hoppers and flying swarms – each swarm made up of billions of plant-devouring insects,” the FAO said.

“FAO estimates that about two-thirds of the island country will be affected by the locust plague by September 2013 if no action is taken.”

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DISASTER CALENDAR – March 28, 2013—SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,080 Days Left

Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.

SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,080 Days Left to ‘Worst Day’ in the brief Human History

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Global Disasters/ Significant Events

“We are eating grasshoppers”

Severe flooding, triggered by week-long extreme rain events in South Africa and Zimbabwe, continued to spread across southern Mozambique.

“The number of displaced people now stood at 67,995 while nearly 85,000 have been affected by the raging waters in recent days, the UN said, urging donors to urgently make more funds available ‘to help deal with this emergency’ in the impoverished southeast African nation.”

Hunger is setting in among tens of thousands of the victims who are waiting for help to arrive, said a report.

“We are eating grasshoppers,” a flood victim told AFP, adding that she believed they were the “lucky ones.”

“We have family in the town, our aunts. They must be on the rooftops now,” she said.

“We left at midnight without taking food. We have nothing to sleep under.”

10 million threatened by hunger as Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger declare states of emergency

Niger (pop: ~ 16million) is the worst affected country with almost half of its population left without enough to eat.

Disaster Calendar 2012 – February 20

[February 20, 2012] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016. SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,486 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

The Sahel, Africa. Ten million people are threatened by hunger across the Sahel, as Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger declare states of emergency.

“Nearly half of Niger does not have enough to eat. The 5.4 million people struggling to stay alive are part of a wider crisis affecting at least 10 million people across the swath across Africa that borders the Sahara, known as the Sahel,” said a spokeswoman for Mercy Corps.

“This is the third time in the last decade the people of the Sahel have faced severe food shortages.”

Other Disasters

Global. Wildfires kill about 339,000 people each year, according to a new study.

The fires consume about 450 million hectares, an area half the size of Canada.

Urban air pollution kills about 2.4 million people globally each year, said The World Health Organization (WHO); however, the true figure may be 10 times as many.]

About 157,000 of the deaths caused by wildfires occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and 110,000 deaths in southeast Asia.

The study suggests a link between climate and wildfire mortality.

El Niño years, when the surface ocean temperature rises in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, claim an average of 532,000 lives, twice as many as the cooler La Niña years, averaging 262,000 deaths per year.

The worst recorded drought in Mexico’s history has severely affected more than 2.5 million people, destroying about 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of cropland in 7 northern states.

Disaster Calendar 2012 – January 21

[January 21, 2012] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016. SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,516 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

Chihuahua State, Mexico. The worst recorded drought in more than 70 years has severely affected 2.5 million people, destroying about 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of cropland in 7 northern states.

The worst affected people are the Tarahumara (Rarámuri).

An estimated 60,000 Tarahumara have been impacted and 90 percent of the local bean crop has failed.

The Organized Front of Indigenous Organizations earlier reported that community members were committing suicide because they were unable to feed their children.

“The indigenous women, when they don´t have anything to feed their children for four or five days, get very sad and that sadness is so great that up to the end of December [2011], 50 men and women threw themselves off cliffs … or hanged themselves,” said the group´s director Ramón Gardea.

The Interior Ministry has denied reports of mass suicides among the Tarahumara communities.

The Mexican Red Cross said the widespread hunger was a “food emergency.”

Many Yemenis live off tea and bread

Half a million Yemeni children suffer from acute malnutrition; drought and deluge threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers, according to Yemeni Minister of Health.

Disaster Calendar 2011 – December 28

[December 28, 2011] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016. SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,540 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

Yemen. A third of the Yemenis, about 8 million people, are food insecure, and the number is expected to rise when the World Food Program carries out a new national Comprehensive Food Security Survey next year.

The term “food insecurity” is used when people go to bed on an empty stomach or have no idea where their next meal may come from.

A recent state survey conducted in Hudeidah Governorate found a global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate of 31.7 percent among the sample population. More than 10 percent of the malnourished children were severe cases.

“The survey also found that nearly 60 percent of children were underweight and 54.5 percent stunted, meaning their height was too low for their age, a sign of longer-term malnutrition.” The UN reported.

“The Hudeidah survey found that three in every four children suffered from diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections or fever in the two weeks preceding the survey; and 2.5 percent of mothers reported symptoms of measles in their children in the past three months. The survey found measles vaccination coverage of 74 percent in Hudeidah, well below the 90 percent coverage rate needed to prevent an outbreak.”

Malnutrition-related deaths are expected to rise in Yemen as the health services continue to deteriorate, UINCEF reported.

“There is no food, no water, no clothes … I want to know what I’m supposed to do … we haven’t found anything to eat in two, three days. Nothing at all.” Pastor Arnaud Dumas

TS Hannah the third tropical storm to strike Haiti in three weeks has left the northern Haitian city of Gonaives submerged in two meters of water. According to AP’s latest report there are 137 confirmed deaths in Haiti.

Hurricane Hanna is seen southeast of Nassau. The system was drifting toward the west near 3 km/hr with maximum sustained winds of about 130km/hr. Dated 2008.09.02 at 08:45UTC – Credit NOAA/NESDIS/EVP

Haitian President Rene Preval declared the situation in his impoverished Caribbean nation a “catastrophe.”

Thousands of people including patients in a flooded hospital have moved to upper floor rooms, balconies and roofs, waiting for the floodwater to recede.

“There are a lot of people who have been on top of the roofs of their homes over 24 hours now … They have no water, no food and we can’t even help them.” The interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, told Reuters news.An aerial view of floods caused by Tropical Storm Hanna is seen in Gonaives September 3, 2008. REUTERS/Marco Dormino/Minustah/Handout

In Cuba more than 500 schools and 100,000 homes were affected. “There are severe damages to the electrical system. It’s practically on the floor,” said the vice- president, Carlos Lage. “In terms of buildings and homes, roofs are generally gone. The island is exposed to the sky.” Thousands of tons of tobacco leaves, coffee, grapefruit and other produce have been destroyed.

A Bolivian peacekeeper, left, stands on an area flooded by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Hanna next to residents in Savan Desole, Haiti, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008. The storm has spawned flooding in Haiti that left 10 people dead in Gonaives, along Haiti’s western coast, according to the country’s civil protection department.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos). Image may be subject to copyright.

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s ex-president likened the destruction to the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. “The photos and videos transmitted on national television reminded me of the desolation I saw when I visited Hiroshima.”

Hurricane Ike in a satellite image taken September 4, 2008. Hurricane Ike strengthened rapidly into an fiercely dangerous Category 4 hurricane in the open Atlantic on Wednesday. REUTERS/NOAA/Handout

Meanwhile, hurricane Ike, a very dangerous category 4B hurricane with sustained winds of about 230 km/hr is revving up about 1,000 km northeast of Haiti. Ike is expected to turn west in the next 24 hours.